Feedback: Won’t somebody please think of the robots?

Please think of the robots!

GOOGLE has obtained a US patent for personalities in robots. Kate Darling, a robot ethicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology complains in IEEE Spectrum that such patents are not good for robotics research because they may restrict innovation by other companies. Feedback’s first thought is for the welfare of the robots. We recall the sufferings of Marvin the Paranoid Android, presented as a prototype of “genuine people personality” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.